Welcome to the President's Inbox. I'm Jim Lindsay, the Mary and David Boyes Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This is the second episode in a special presidential transition series on the President's Inbox.

From now until I'm sitting down with experts to unpack

who will staff Donald Trump's next presidential administration

and how he and his team will likely approach

the many foreign policy challenges they will face.

This week's topic is the Middle East.

With me to discuss how countries in the Middle East are reacting to Trump's election victory,

and what he plans to do in the region, is Stephen Cook.

Stephen is the E&I Enrico Mottai Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies here at the Council.

He has written four books on the Middle East, the most recent being the end of ambition,

America's past, present, and future in the Middle East, which was released this summer.

Stephen is also a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine where he recently wrote a piece titled Trump and Harris

on Middle East Policy. Stephen, thank you as always for joining me on the president's inbox.

It's great to be back, Jim. So, Stephen, help me understand how capitals in the Middle East

are reacting to the news that Donald Trump is returning to the White House

in January and perhaps you could go country by country and let's start with Israel.

I mean, just generally, Jim, by and large, there's lots of relief.

People are welcoming a new Trump administration.

And why is that?

Well, I think that there's a general sense that President Trump was a stronger

advocate, stronger for Washington's regional partners that the United States under Trump was more

...